


Harlequin-themed drabbley things

by qwerty



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Implied Bestiality, M/M, Minor Character Death, Other, POV Second Person, Sibling Incest, impending death and doom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-04
Updated: 2011-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:19:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/pseuds/qwerty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harlequin challenge; one 300-something words, one drabble, one less than 300 words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. At the end of the world where only you and I remain

You fell straight down for three heartbeats before your flailing body crashed through dry branches and glanced off a sloping ledge of soft earth, coming to a stop an arm's length from endless dark. You can see it, where the edge of the world falls away into nothing.

Behind you, there is only a sheer, impossible wall. If you turn on your side to ease your aching back, you will slip from this world, too easily.

Can Ygraine exist, beyond this darkness? You cannot believe it. Surely if you fall from this edge, you will find only the howling ghosts of the accursed sorcerers who conspired to take her from you, the traitors who hounded you into this lost pit of hell.

"Who intrudes in my prison?" demands a voice that shakes your precarious ledge with its rumbling bass tones. You clutch at the ground, determined to hold on to the bitter end.

"Who?" demands the voice again, laughably prideful for one who admits to being a mere prisoner. Then winds stir, bringing stale, musty scents of old dust and dank earth, and a creature from legend rises from the dark.

A dragon. The last dragon, that you ordered the last Dragonlord to lure and entrap, that you have never met. Its dull gold scales gleam without need of light as it twists its vast shape to fill the cavern above you, and it inhales deeply, breathing you in.

"What have we here? Poor human king, driven from the kingdom he traded all he had to keep." It throws back its head and laughs; you slip a little more.

"You will not speak to me this way, foul beast," you command, with what voice you still have.

The dragon tilts its head, looking at you with glowing golden eyes as bright as Ygraine's hair had been. "How should I speak to you, then, if not as equals? Here I am bound and forgotten, never to see the sun again, and you... if any knew where you fell, they still would not lift a finger to raise you up. We are two lost souls, awaiting the end as one."

It speaks truth. You close your eyes as a vast claw gently brushes moisture from your cheek.


	2. trajectories from extinction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin and Kilgharrah, on the run.

They are hiding from the soldiers; but whose soldiers, Merlin isn't sure anymore. They could be Arthur's, or Morgana's, not that it matters now. The cave they took refuge in is dank and mossy, silent, save for harsh, laboured pants that seem as much pain as effort.

"Just a little more," Merlin whispers, stroking the shivering flank of his beloved. He wipes angrily at his eyes as another low cry echoes through the cave. Kilgharrah rumbles with strain, pushing out one more egg, then another. "Be strong, my love. We will fill the hollow skies with our kin once more."


	3. before the knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forbidden love.

"You can't carry on like this," she says, touching the bloody cut on Elyan's lip where he'd bitten it during the fight. "You're killing yourself, and it's killing me."

He catches her hand, presses his bruised cheek to it. "Father was wrong. We should never have come here. I can't stand how they treat us, just because we are foreign. You're not some common woman they can abuse and take liberties with. You're..." he stops; they both know what he should say, and that it's not what he wants to say.

"You're my brother," Gwen reminds him, biting back the tears of rage and despair she wants to shed. "It's only right that you should want to protect me. But I can protect myself too," she insists, determined.

Elyan shakes his head. "Camelot is no place for the likes of us. With his skill, Father would have been honoured and sought after anywhere else, not scrabbling for every farthing to feed and clothe us. You would have been a princess..."

"You're sweet, but foolish," Gwen says, smiling bravely. "Anyway, he's found me work in the castle. From tomorrow, I will be maidservant to the Lady Morgana. You've seen her bringing bread to the poor children. She's kind and beautiful, and they say the King cherishes her like a daughter. No one will dare speak roughly to me there."

Elyan's grip on her hand tightens painfully. "You will still be a mere servant. Come away with me. Let us find a place where no one knows us and we can be together."

"I can't... I can't leave Father," she says. "I'm sorry."

Elyan ducks his head and turns away, releasing her hand. She knows that when morning comes, he will not be there.


End file.
